Schusterman Center welcomes Visiting Professor Gideon M. Greif

Posted: September 20, 2011

Greif, an Israeli historian, is teaching two Fall 2011 J S 364 courses: The Holocaust in Israeli Culture, and Prime Ministers of Israel. He will also continue his research on contemporaneous knowledge of the Holocaust in Europe.

A leading scholar of the Holocaust (with emphasis on the history of Auschwitz), Greif studied Jewish and Israeli history at Tel Aviv University before earning his Ph.D. in Modern History at the University of Vienna. Greif held a position at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies for most of the past three decades; he has also taught at the University of Haifa, the Open University of Ramat Aviv, and the University of Miami. Additionally, Greif has reached beyond the academy to participate in educational seminars and projects on the Holocaust at museums, memorials, and high schools in Europe, Australia and the USA. He is currently preparing a volume of interpretive essays on the Holocaust. Furthermore, Greif has written two plays and participated in the production of numerous prize-winning radio and film documentaries on the Holocaust.

"We are thrilled to have Gideon Greif here, both for the courses he is teaching and his more general presence in the Center's and University's community,” said Professor Robert H. Abzug, director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies. “At UT we have a number of scholars and graduate students who work in the history of the Holocaust, and his contact with them will be of mutual benefit. In addition, his undergraduate courses on Israeli political history, the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli culture, and the earlier history of Jewish settlement during the British mandate of Palestine will enrich the broader curriculum of Jewish Studies."

Greif’s current research expands his treatment of the Holocaust through study of, among other topics, closely researched treatment of the personality and crimes of Adolf Eichmann, the process of extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek, and the fate of Greek Jews under the Nazis.

Greif is the author We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz, translated into English in 2005, as well as the Die Jeckes (in German), written with Laurence Weinbaum and Collin Mcpherson, which recounts the history and contributions of German Jews to Israeli culture. He is the author of numerous works in Hebrew, including an account of a young Greek Jew’s life in Auschwitz that will be published soon in Denmark.